Bill Whatcott, a hysterical anti-gay activist, male nurse, and former mayoral candidate, must pay a $17,000 fine for violating human rights after an appeal of a 2005 ruling was denied.

Whatcott was fined two years ago for what the human rights tribunal called “a clear pattern of practice of disregard for protected rights.” The complaint was launched against him in retaliation of a mass mailing that called gay people pedophiles and child molesters. He was found guilty to having incited hatred, but refused to pay the fine (and unwittingly raised money for some truly worthwhile causes).

As the mere thought of gay people being right makes all of Bill’s eye capillaries burst, he has vowed to bring his case to the provincial appeals court.

Incidentally, Bill was in the news earlier this year for his unusual campaign to run for Mayor in Edmonton’s October municipal election. His platform was based almost entirely on an anti-gay agenda, but included promises to alter zoning bylaws to prohibit abortion clinics, dismantle Edmonton’s hate crime’s unit, and end all funding for animal shelters and the arts.

Late last month, the Alberta Human Rights Commission ruled that an anti-gay letter written by Stephen Boisson, a former member of the Concerned Christian Coalition, violated provincial human rights codes.

I’m not sure how easily understood this is unless you are one of the people threatened by the letter, but being called “as immoral as pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps” and then having a call to action issued against you as open-ended as “take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness [of the] homosexual machine” is scary. Unlike Boisson, I firmly believe that being gay is neither a choice nor an alterable trait and support activism that seeks equal rights grounded by this view. From this perspective, the letter is somewhat of a doom sentence. If my “wickedness” can’t be reversed, what remaining steps are left to stop me? Would anyone take the letter’s instruction to heart? Perhaps someone did, as a violent anti-gay attack occurred two days after the letter was published.

But what about from Boisson’s perspective? He doesn’t believe gay people exist: only straight sinners. Did he really call for the violence that occurred after his letter’s publication? There’s only circumstantial evidence linking the two, though the letter probably helped foster an environment where a physical attack was considered an appropriate action by the perpetrators.

Here’s the tricky thing. The letter was strongly worded, but vague—a meticulously constructed plan to assert territory in a legal grey area. Whether or not it calls for outright hatred and violence depends on the reader’s interpretation.

Ethically speaking, should the letter have been written? Absolutely not. It was an unnecessary and consequential assertion; a total confusion of one’s right to do something and the right thing to do.

Should one be fined for writing such a sufficiently vague letter, though? I’m still conflicted—not that it matters much. The issue has been decided, hasn’t it?

Bill Whatcott, the anti-gay activist who had his nurse’s license suspended, has been ordered to pay $17,000 for repeated human rights violations. The kicker? He’s refusing to pay.

In an open letter hand-delivered to 3500 households, Whatcott explained his rationale for the civil disobedience, painting himself as a saviour of children—who he says are in immediate danger of being molested by homosexuals. Observe his ever-so-moving penmanship:

It is a fact that a greater percentage of homosexuals molest children than their heterosexual counterparts. Sodomites only consist of between 2 – 3% of the population. Yet they commit of over 33% of the reported sex offences.

Charming. I feel the sympathy already. Gee, Bill, I can’t imagine how you were found guilty of hate crimes…

Incidentally, the paper that Whatcott cited for the above “fact” was written by one Dr. Timothy Dailey (Ph.D in religion) and published by the anti-gay lobby group “Family Research Council.” It has been thoroughly disproved and runs contrary to every single peer-reviewed study on the subject. Even the suppliers of the statistics that Dr. Tim cited to arrive at his conclusion have decried the work as deceptive manipulation. One, Dr. Nicholas Groth, even demanded that any reference to his work be removed from the offending paper; an extraordinarily rare move in the academic community.

Whatcott knows all this, but hey—can you blame him? I mean, his only other choice is to do something crazy like, I dunno, be big enough to admit that his actions were libelous and wrong and accept the consequences.

Bill Whatcott, a nutty Saskatchewan nurse, lost an appeal to have his nursing license un-suspended this week for defaming the health association Planned Parenthood. Whatcott was picketing Planned Parenthood’s Regina office in 2003, harassing their patients, shouting derogatory slogans, and calling the workers there “sodomites,” “murderers,” and “disseminators of AIDS.” Charming lad, no?

Of course, this suspension isn’t anything new to Billy, as he’s been fined multiple times in the past for inciting hatred toward gays, including $17,000 just last year for mailing out flyers jam-packed with his own brand of magical fantasy facts like: “sodomites are 430 times more likely to acquire AIDS and three times more likely to sexually abuse children.”

Now, there’s no word on how Billy did on his bedside manner courses back in college, but I’m guessing it might have been in the… oh, D, maybe D- area.